IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT

IN THE STILL OF THE NIGHT

 

Otis O’Brien enjoyed a certain reputation in Purville and the surrounding countryside. He distilled, without argument, the finest moonshine in the county. People drove for miles to purchase a few fruit jars of the magic elixir. Purville County was a dry county which meant no alcoholic beverages of any kind could be bought or sold. It had been that way for as long as people could remember. Some blamed the Baptist because everyone knew they didn’t drink and they cursed those that did. Some said it was the Methodist, but it was a well-known fact that the Reverend Wilson kept a jar of Otis’s moonshine in his church office. It did cure the sniffles and cleared the throat before an hour-long Sunday sermon. A dark shadow was also cast on the Church of Christ congregation. No one had ever seen them or their minister take a drink, except at baptismal, and that was only grape juice even though they called it wine and said it was the blood of Christ.

You couldn’t blame the Catholics. Hell, everyone knew they drank at every occasion or opportunity. Father Jacobs not only drank, he also smoked big ugly black cigars and said hell and damn, and that wasn’t just in his sermons but out in public too.

Who was the blame? It really didn’t matter because as dry as the county was and as religious and pious as the citizens were, one hell of a lot of Otis’s moonshine got sold. On Friday and Saturday nights there was even a line at the backdoor of Otis’s modest home on Jeffery Street where it ducked under the railroad underpass.

 

Everyone, including Sheriff Tate, knew the old tool shed out back of Otis’s house wasn’t a tool shed, and the smoke coming out of the smokehouse next to the tool shed wasn’t from smoking hams. It was Otis’s still, and for two or three blocks in any direction you could smell the strong odor of alcohol.

 

Otis was known to take a drink or two when he was out working in the shed. He was his own quality control and when it didn’t taste right to him he knew it wouldn’t taste right to his customers…and this was his undoing.

 

On one Sunday afternoon in early September, while Mrs. O’Brien went to church and prayed for the salvation of their souls, Otis went to his still and mixed up a batch to put in the distillation vat.

There was a half a jar of the grain alcohol on the table by the vat and Otis consumed it while he stirred the mixture. The shine didn’t taste quite as potent as Otis would have liked, and he vowed to make this batch a bit stronger. He added to the mixture and opened another jar. It too lacked the kick he was famous for making. He consumed it as a part of his quality control procedures and added again to the mixture.

 

“This stuff taste like cistern water. Ain’t got no kick a’tall. Nobody’s gonna buy this horse piss,” he said aloud to himself. Quality Control people do that. He added to the mixture again and continued stirring. A third jar was opened. It too was bad. More mix. More stirring.

At half-past noon, Mrs. O’Brien returned from church with Reverend Wilson – Mrs. Obrien was a Methodist – and three deacons and their wives. As famous as Otis was for his moonshine, Nellie O’Brien was just as famous for her fried chicken and cornbread, and that’s why the minister and the deacons and their wives came to the house of Otis O’Brien that Sunday afternoon.

Otis wasn’t particularly sociable during dinner. He mumbled a lot and said a few curse words that elicited a raised eyebrow from Nellie and a polite cough from the Reverend Wilson. Otis hadn’t planned on spending that Sunday afternoon gnawing on chicken and being polite while exchanging small talk. He had other things to do. He had a reputation to protect and his last batch wasn’t all that good. Besides, he expected the Reverend Wilson to ask for a free jar or two, which he usually did when he could get Otis alone for a few minutes.

Later, after dinner, the Reverend asked and Otis gave. Otis was happy to provide the Reverend the liquor because shortly thereafter the Reverend and his flock would leave; he always did when he got his medicine.

“Otis,” Nellie said after the guests had departed, “did you give the Reverend his medicine? He needs it, ya know. He gets the vapors and it helps him…’specially on Sunday when he has to preach so long.”

“Yeah, I gave him some. Ain’t got no vapors. He jes likes a swig of good shine now and then. I gotta go out back and finish the batch I was making.”

Otis kept adding and mixing and drinking and stirring until after dark. He wanted the get this batch just perfect. Finally satisfied, he took one final swig, lit the oak firewood under the tank and locked the door as he headed toward the house.

They say people in Hickory, four miles away, heard the explosion. It blew the rear of the O’Brien’s house to smithereens. Two big telephone pole-size supports under the railroad underpass splintered causing the railroad bed and track to drop nearly two feet, delaying train traffic across the underpass for two weeks. Twenty-two of Nellie O’Brien’s chickens in a coop next to the tool shed all but disappeared from the face of the earth except for feathers that floated in the air for nearly an hour. Window panes in houses up to a block away were busted out. Otis O’Brien was found beside the railroad track, his denim bib-overalls ripped to shreds, bloody but alive. Nellie survived with nothing more than stained drawers and a ringing in her ears that persisted for months.

Dr. Fulton treated Otis at the Community Hospital. He dug out enough splinters of wood and shards of glass to fill a small wash pan. Burns and blisters were covered with a foul smelling yellow ointment and white gauze bandages were applied.

“Otis, you old fool, you darn near killed yourself,” Doctor Fulton shook his head. “What the hell happened?”

“It was the still, Doc. Damn thing blew all to pieces.”

“The still? Jesus Christ, Otis! Was there anything left?”

“No sir. Nothin’ bigger than a chunk of coal. We gotta keep this a secret, Doc. I don’t want ever’one in town knowing I had a still out back.”

“I think just about everyone knows, Otis. No big secret, your still.”

“I don’t want it in the papers. Can’t you tell them something else happened ‘sides the still blowing?”

“Got any shine left, Otis?”

I had about ten or twelve jars under the house that didn’t get blown up. Should be okay.”

 

Headline in the September 10^th edition of the Purville Progress:

LOCAL MAN BURNED IN EXPLOSION

Purville resident, Otis O’Brien, was seriously burned Sunday evening when a can of gasoline stored in his tool shed exploded. His house and grounds were severely damaged, but his wife, Nellie, suffered no permanent injuries. Pilings under the railroad trestle were also damaged causing a delay in train traffic while the pilings were replaced. Dr. Ray Fulton treated Mr. Obrien in the emergency room at the Community Hospital. Mr. Obrien will remain hospitalized for several days.

 

For the next three months, Dr. Ray Fulton had the only decent supply of Otis’s moonshine in Purchase County.